Monday, April 14, 2008

Taxes! The fingers thing means the taxes!

Grumblegrumblegrumble.

Today was another landmark in the process of growing up: the first time I had to cut a check to Uncle Sam on tax day. My income had stayed low enough i
n prior years that when I finished filling out the Byzantine tax forms, the final number resulted in a meager little windfall for myself. It never seemed to be that much, and it was always irksome knowing that the refund money -- money that was rightfully mine -- spent the better part of the year in Federal coffers (where it helped financed things I don't support, like pork barrel projects and warfare) instead of my pocket (where it could finance things I do support, like beer). But it still was money, and by my loose definition of the phrase, it was free money. (Free money, by my count, is any income that I cannot remember having earned. It encompasses wadded-up bills found in my laundry, money friends pay me back for loans I forgot I gave them, and my favorite kind, checks made out to me that have hidden deep in my bag or piles of paper on my desk)

This past year was different. Due in part to a larger income (though this being near San Francisco, my cost-of-living is so high that there's less money making it's way to my savings than before I moved out here) and a bit of interest income, the math somehow worked out so that I still owed money to the gubbermint. Needless to say, I was not pleased. Every two weeks last year, I would receive a check from my employer. There would be a nice, respectable number on the top of the check, followed by a series of somewhat smaller numbers below. The smaller numbers would chip away at Mr. Gross Income sitting up at the top of the page, poking him and needling him and slicing him up until his beaten corpse fell to the bottom of the page, where he became Mr. Pay To The Order Of, now only a meager shadow of his former greatness.

So after a year of this, I was looking forward to a nice, fat refund. The sort of refund that, were I to spend the entire sum on beer, would cause my liver to march out of my body in protest. I thought about how I could put said refund towards my planned road trip fund this summer. I thought about taking my refund check down to the bank, requesting that it be cashed entirely in pennies, and then filling my bathtub with the coins and wallowing in my wealth like Mammon himself.

But instead, my cash goes to that flag-wearing jag-off in a top hat, Uncle Freaking Sam. I would like to think that I would feel less outraged about paying taxes if I knew that the majority of my money was not being used to finance a war I've opposed since its inception, but I doubt it. I'd probably still find something to bitch about even if every penny I paid was perfectly, efficiently funneled to pay for needed schools, hospitals, and infrastructure.

At least I know it's over for another year, and I might as well relax as much as I can. So I'm enjoying a nice , big, White Russian and watching one of my favorite Simpsons episodes, "The PTA Disbands" (source of the title for this post). I'll just have to deal with my frustration, sit back, and accept that if I have to pay more taxes, that very fact means I'm taking home more money than I did before. That, and I'd just waste it on booze anyway.

"Behold, the mythological Esquilax! The horse with the head of a rabbit...and...the body of a rabbit!"
-Friar Wiggum

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